Tug-of-War
by Tonzura123
Summary: "You don't want to play any war games with me. And you really don't want to involve yourself with my brother." PE-verse. Three-shot. Rated for violence. No pairings.
1. Tug of War

**"TUG-OF-WAR"**

**by Tonzura123**

**Disclaimer: Oh, hey! Lookie, lookie- there's actually an OC in here! But sadly, the really nice characters still aren't mine.**

* * *

_"For pride is a spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense."_

_-_C.S Lewis, _Mere Christianity- "The Great Sin"_

* * *

**-1948-**

The door slams with a ruckus of laughs and Edmund waits a moment before speaking.

"Well, I have good news; These are some really terrible knots."

Peter rolls his head towards his younger brother's voice, tracing a black-on-black outline as his eyes adjust to the darkness of the storage room. Crates and red ink, and flickering lights the shape and color of oranges spin around him.

"Can you get out of them?" Peter asks. His voice sounds slurry to his own ears.

A short breath, exasperated, hits his cheekbone in answer: Edmund is already out. Peter can feel his brother's fingers begin to twist and tease at the rope around his wrists. Edmund _tsks_. Then his presence evaporates from Peter's side, and his voice calls, disembodied, from the shadows.

"Try standing."

And Peter does try, rope falling away with a hiss to the cement floor, but then his knees fold pliably beneath him, and a sharp shoulder just barely catches him.

"_Oof_," Edmund says. He juggles his brother's weight for moment, and Peter loops an aching arm around Edmund's neck, balancing on one sore leg as the other drags at the ground. Peter sucks in a breath and holds it, willing the floor to stay horizontal.

"We won't make it out like this," he says. Or, rather, "_Wn mak 'tout like this..." _

"Watch us," Edmund replies. Or, rather, "_Shut up."_

He kicks open the back door and they're out in the alley again. Peter can feel Edmund's shoulder relax minutely, because the alley is empty and neither of them will have to fight anyone else tonight. One of Peter's teeth is lying around here somewhere, likely behind the rubbish bins in a puddle of beer and water and urine. Peter's head flares with the memory. His foot slips on diluted blood.

A roar announces the arrival of Creature, and its high-beam lights flood the alley a moment later. The thick wheels whirr to a stand-till, exhaust pipe smoking like a chimney. One thin leg braces the bike as the rider peels back her aviator goggles with a cry of alarm.

"Peter!" Lucy exclaims. She sets out the kick-stand and runs over, helping Edmund with their brother's weight. "What in Aslan's name happened?"

"Careful with him, Lu," Edmund is saying, and Peter's limbs are being shoved around, and his face is pressing heavily against the leather of someone's warm back, and his brother (light shadow and invisible vibrations running like electricity) talking in low tones. A second body settles behind Peter. They sway. A large roar, like a lion, tears through the night. And on the lion's back, they race away.

**OoOoOoOoO**

"We can't let mum see him like this."

"Well, we can't exactly stow him in a cupboard."

"If you three didn't _insist_ on getting yourselves killed every other night, this wouldn't be an issue!"

A chair squeals across hardwood floor. Peter can feel it squeal across his brain.

"I have to go."

"Edmund!"

"I have to see Jack!"

A flurry of footsteps. A slamming door. Peter doesn't remember his family being quite this loud before. He feels morosely hungover; all aching head and twisting stomach and that dulled, apathetically shredded note of conscience that mutters something like, "_I am never doing that again."_

Peter wishes he was hungover. It had only happened once before, when he was fourteen and learning the celebratory gestures of Fauns for the first time in his Kingship. Oh, yes- only once. But once was enough, when that one time coincided with a war council, a peace treaty, and two young women insisting they were intended to wed Peter or Edmund or both. The only good thing about hangovers was that could be shrugged off after most of the day had passed.

Injuries, on the other hand, didn't dissapate nearly as quickly.

Something wet touches him and he opens his eyes to muted sunlight and Susan's powder-canvas face hovering like a ghost.

"Peter," she breathes. A stinging sings from his head as she presses a damp, lemon-smelling rag against it. "How are you feeling?"

"Where'd Ed go?" he asks.

"How are you feeling?" she insists darkly, pressing a little harder than necessary on his scalp.

He relents with a hissed, "Fine."

"Wrong answer," Susan remarks. Her long hair is pinned up and pulled back, blue eyes nearly black.

Peter realizes that they're in the bedroom Peter shares with Edmund, and one of his legs is resting chillingly above the blankets, propped and wrapped like a mummy on display. He squints at it. "Is my leg _broken_?"

"Sprained ankle. And stop craning your neck like that- You need to keep your head steady for a while."

"Lucy?"

"Downstairs."

"_Ed?"_

"Never you mind."

Peter throws back the covers and wheels himself around to plant both feet on the floor. The frightful twinging in his right leg gives him pause. Susan takes the opportunity to grab him roughly by the shoulders and push him (with surprising strength) back onto the bed.

"_No, _Peter."

"But, Edmund-"

"-Is _fine_. So fine, in fact, that he's been awake half the night and just left to speak to some man called Jack. What on earth were you _doing_ last night to come home all bloodied like this?"

"I don't know," Peter says honestly. "I don't remember."

**OoOoOoOoO**

Edmund does remember.

He makes a point to remember everything about his family. Just like he remembers that Peter is about to turn nineteen again; that his brother has been at Oxford for a year now without Edmund. Edmund, who is Peter's sparring partner; who was _trained _to be Peter's sparring partner. It's how the whole mad thing manages to _work_. But a year without sparring made skills and reactions flacid at best. It was a miracle that Peter had lived through last night.

"What'll it be, sir?"

It's a half-empty cafe near the water front called _Inklings_, where he and Peter finalized the Friends and their operations, and Jack works here.

Jack, the waiter, almost manages an extra fifty percent raise with Edmund around. They have a system. Usually, Edmund follows it. But Edmund remembers all too well that last night, Jack's information hadn't been correct, and now Peter is laid-up because of it. Today is not a day for systems. Today Edmund declares National Impatience Day.

"The truth," Edmund retorts. He looks Jack in the eye and takes pleasure when the grown man twitches. "And maybe a refund. I was less than pleased with yesterday's tea."

Jack returns the look blankly, "But- Sir, I _gave you_-"

The truth. Jack gave him the truth. Edmund can see it in his eyes.

And behind Jack's shoulder, a pair of blue eyes watching them.

Edmund stands- the eyes, attached to a girl, flutter and duck behind a large family of seven. Edmund hears the back door amidst a forrest of chattering children, muttering mothers, and fool-hardy fathers. He slips around them, cane gripped tight, and kicks open the back door.

He's in an alley again, much like the one from last night. Bins and stacks of crates and boxes that could hide any number of armies, or one silly girl. He can smell oranges, coffee, and the Thames. A whisper of jasmine to the left.

A footprint, about her size, in the mud.

A reflection in glass.

A glance.

A long walk to find a ghost of a girl by the bank of the Thames, right beside an old beached steamer. She leans back on a king-purple suitcase and smokes. Bloodred lips and pearl-white teeth set Edmund's on edge as she greets him with a curled smoke smile.

"Don't be so fussy," she calls. "Lovers' quarrels are always messy affairs."

"Peter is not your lover," says Edmund savagely.

"Is, was, will be."

"_Never_."

She considers him.

He knows how he must look; a split lip and bruising eye, hobbling with a cane and scowling, and most of all he looks young. Dreadfully young. But that's her misperception, not his.

"Do you _really _want to play tug-of-war, Tiny Tim?" she asks.

Edmund almost manages to feel sorry for her; she doesn't understand at all.

"You don't want to play any war games with me," he says. "And you _really _don't want to involve yourself with my brother."

**OoOoOoOoO**

_They had met some years ago, before the war, because their parents (her father and his dad) were old school chums. Both had attended Oxford. Both studied to be professors. But then, at some point or another, her father had come into money and decided he was better off living comfortably on that sum than creating a significantly smaller sum by a classroom profession._

_Regardless, Mr. Dawson was a rather likable man- very ordinary, with ordinary likes and dislikes (Queen, rugger, and taxes, respectively), and an overall ordinary outlook on life. He was the same age as his father, though he looked a little older because of his salt-and-pepper hair and the funny walrus moustache that dangled over his lip and quivered like a gerbil while he spoke. He was most often seen wearing some sort of smoking jacket, particularly before meals, and his left hand perpetually held a fat sausage of a cigar between his thumb and ring finger. He was fond of Peter's father, and supremely courteous to Peter's mother, and that was all a boy Peter's age could really ask for. _

_When Peter was three, and meeting him for the first time, Mr. Dawson had looked at him, bent over, and shook his hand vigorously. _

_"And what is this?" the gentleman demanded of the small and silent boy. Reaching behind his ear, Mr. Dawson pulled out a fresh stick of chewing gum, "It's a good thing you keep your ears so clean," Mr. Dawson told Peter seriously, "Otherwise I'd have found something rotten back there- like brussel sprouts." And while the jovial man was pulling another stick of candy from Susan's ear, Peter pocketed his prize._

_Yet while Mr. Dawson was fun loving and lively, good with children and rather lacsidasical about his manners, his wife, the Lady Grace Dawson, was not any of these things._

_Rather, the woman was a stickler for social order and precisely timed tea steeping. With one hand, she held a good grip over her husband, with the other, over his friends. _

_It was for this reason that Peter had first met Charlotte, though he hadn't the foggiest notion of Lady Grace Dawson's ploys at that naive period in his life. _

_On that day, the Lady was sitting in the drawing room, swollen like a bumblebee and stitching a complex pattern of day lilies into a pillow. At the time, Peter had thought nothing of it, for his mother was swollen as well- it was how Peter thought all mothers looked. But it seemed a subject that both fathers had difficulty forgetting, and kept mentioning it, laughing at each other while the Lady sat sternly frowning at Peter and Susan, and while Mama blushed a little from the corner of her eyes to the tip of her chin. Finally the subject became centered on what gender each baby would be, and Peter perked up, interested._

_"Well, with Gracie here, we're hoping it will be a boy," Mr. Dawson was saying, puffing on his cigar and quivering his lively moustache, "You know, a strong, able boy to carry on the family business."_

_The men laughed, but Peter thought that staying home all the time seemed a very lovely and rewarding business indeed._

_"Poor tyke," Papa smiled, "Helen thinks ours is a boy as well."_

_"Do you?" Mr. Dawson asked of Mama, very animated in his sincere happiness for her._

_"It's the same as Peter felt," Mama smiled, and Peter went to her and gripped her thumb and pinkie in each of his hands._

_Lady Dawson sighed._

_"It's not a woman's place to speak of such things," she said._

_"Oh! Bother that humdrum! We're all friends here! And if anyone should know, it's you, my dear Helen. Why-! You've both raised two of the finest children in all of London, I'm sure."_

_"But surely all children are different," Lady Dawson returned, frowning at Mama, "Not to insult your experience, Helen, but one can never be certain about these kinds of things."_

_"I can," Mama answered, and lifted Peter to sit tucked up against his mystery sibling. He placed his ear against her belly and listened to the second, softer lub-dub that was intruding on the steady pulse of his mothers'._

_"But how?" Mr. Dawson asked._

_"By the way he kicks. Or doesn't kick, I should say."_

_"Your baby doesn't kick?" asked the Lady, in tones that would suggest her own babe was proficient in that matter._

_"He pushes out very slowly, like he's testing his boundaries. Occasionally, he'll kick. But only if I put off on eating a meal, or if I move too quickly from one place to another."_

_Mr. Dawson grinned at Papa, "Sounds like a regular rogue, Charles."_

_"Oh, I'm sure he'll be taken care of, eh Peter? You'll look after him, won't you?" for Peter was pressing his cheek against his mother in search of the brother who supposedly lived there, "He's so eager to be a big brother again."_

_But of course, at that moment, Peter yelled and Mama said "Oomph!" and the baby withdrew its little foot from where it had struck Peter square in the nose._

_"Why'd he do that?" Peter asked, "Did I make him angry?"_

_"Of course not," Mr. Dawson diplomacized._

_"Come 'ere, Pete," said Papa. He lifted the boy into his arms and put Peter's his hand onto his mother's stomach._

_"There he is again!" Peter cried, his hand tingling from the force of the blow._

_"Absolutely, there he is," Mama agreed, puffing a bit and rubbing stiffly._

_"You see, Peter?" Papa said, "He's only saying 'hello' to you."_

_"Hello," Peter replied, "Hello, little brother."_

_Lub-dub! said the awaited intruder, and stilled his attack._

_"Well fancy that," Mr. Dawson exclaimed, the turned to his wife, who was doggedly threading her needle in and out of the throw-pillow's silken boarders, "This- right here- is why I love children."_

_"You like their innocence- but what of when they've grown up? Or, rather, when they bicker and fight and pay you no mind? What then, Hubert?"_

_"I'll love them all the same!" Mr. Dawson proclaimed, but seemed a good deal bothered after she had said her say, and puffed vigorously on his cigar._

_It wasn't too long after the matter, that Mama announced that Susan was getting sleepy, so they'd best be off. The men shook hands (Mr. Dawson shook Peter's as well) and the women exchanged pleasantries across the room to each other, and Papa took Peter's hand in his and led them all out into the street to call a cabby._

_Peter began to tell his Mama's belly "Good-night" and "Good-morning" after that day._

**OoOoOoOoO**

The point was, those men weren't supposed to be in the alley that night. Edmund had made all of his plans on this point. He had become to lenient in his trust of Jack. He should have spread out his web. Instead, on blind faith, he told Peter they would be safe on the reconassaince mission that night. And because of Edmund's trust, and Peter's weakened skills, they barely escaped with their lives.

Lovers' quarrels indeed.

Edmund seethes on the walk home. It rolls off of his shoulders. He can feel it dripping down his back and trailing on the sidewalk behind him like a track of blood. And he secretely hopes some fool will try to follow it to its end. He is more than prepared- his hand is white on the cane.

When he walks up the lane and through the garden of the Pevensie home, he finds Susan pulling on a long coat and picking an umbrella out of the stand.

She looks up at him, eyes wide. "Are you all right?"

"Of course," he says. Then, of the umbrella, "What's that for?"

"...Edmund," she says slowly, "It's pouring rain outside."

"No it's-"

Something _does _trickle down his back then, and a cold thrill runs over his body to realize that he is sopping wet. The soft crush of a storm surrounds the house and hums through the wood.

"Oh," is all he can say.

"You must be more angry than I thought." In a rare show of affection, Susan puts down her own things and helps Edmund out of his. It's like a moment from their past- when Susan would help wrap bandages around his bleeding limbs or help him limp from room to room, his stomach not quite over being impaled. For a moment, Edmund wants to turn around, throw his arms around her, and hold tight until her heart melts under the hot confusion of his own. It's such a boyish thing to want. It's such a necessary thing.

"Thank you, Susan," Edmund says.

And that is all they say.

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**A/N: Ha! There- more bromance for you guys. I haven't written Peter and Edmund in a while.**

**I meant for this to be a oneshot but it's growing like a weed. It's going to be another short-story like "Magician's Cousins" (the final chapter of which is half-way finished). Next time, we'll discover what Peter and Edmund were doing in the alley as Edmund fills in Peter's missing memory.**

**There's something else that's building in this story, and it's the presence of Susan Pevensie. I know that my works typically align themselves with C.S Lewis' canon-Susan, who pulls away from Narnia. In my stories, this is partially due to a spell that James Collins place on her in "P.E". For some reason, in this story, Susan is speaking up again. I think that will be important for her story (also in development) called "P.S."**

**Also, I want to let you know that Charlotte Dawson and Peter Pevensie are NOT going to pair up. That's not how I roll. Romance is my bane. But it is important that you get to know her, because she will also appear in "P.S".**

**In any event, hope you're enjoying nice weather and summer-time fun! **

**As Always,**

**-Tonzura123**


	2. Friends of War

**"TUG-OF-WAR"**

**Chapter Two: Friends of War**

**by Tonzura123**

**Disclaimer: If I can't have Narnia, can I own England? Cuz I'll gladly take England...**

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_Charlotte Dawson was a spoiled, flouncy little girl who clung to Peter from the moment he entered her house. For some reason she wasn't nearly as fascinated with Susan (who was two years older than she) as she was with Peter. In fact, when Susan had offered to play dolls with her, Charlotte had twisted her rose-bud lips into a frown strikingly similar to her mother, and told Susan to go play with her own silly dolls. Charlotte, it was to be noted, had _imported _dolls from _France_. And they were not to be played with._

_"What's the point of them, then?" Peter asked, trying to pry Charlotte off with one hand._

_He could only use one hand, you see, because the other was gripped by a pair of much littler hands, belonging to a much littler boy. Edmund was the same age as Charlotte, give or take a week, but felt that he had more of a right to hold into his big brother than Charlotte._

_"Oh, Peter," Charlotte laughed, the sound like tiny bells. "To _look at_, of course."_

_Edmund experimented with peeling her strong fingers from his brother's forearm, and she seemed to notice him for the first time._

_"Oh, it's _you_," Charlotte said scathingly. She obliged to let go of Peter and stepped back, dark, full eyes sizing up the small boy. (Edmund wound his little arms around his brother's hand and let his knees go out, putting his entire weight on one side of Peter's body and forcing the older boy to pull upwards to prevent himself from falling.)_

_"He's rather stupid, isn't he?" Charlotte asked of Peter, nose up._

_"Is not!" Peter cried in outrage, though it must have ruined the overall effect to have a four-year-old dangling from his arm like a monkey. "He's very smart!"_

_"All right then." She looked at Edmund, and he looked back. "What's your name?"_

_Edmund looked at her, looked up at Peter, and turned on Charlotte with a very solemn face, but said nothing._

_"How old are you?" she pressed, dragging out the syllables._

_"He's not deaf," Peter remarked. "He just doesn't want to speak to you."_

_Charlotte flung a thick wing of curls over her pink-satin shoulder and glared down her nose, declaring that any boy who wouldn't answer a direct question from a lady could not be a gentleman._

_Peter swung his brother up onto one hip and rebuffed that Edmund was not a gentleman, he was a kid, and that Charlotte was not a lady, only a very silly girl. He began to march away from her with two tiny arms clamped around his neck, while two large brown eyes smirked over his shoulder and as a pink tongue blew a raspberry back._

_"That wasn't very nice," Peter said finally, as the pair reached an old oak on the eastern edge of the lawn and he set his younger brother on one gnarled root. "No matter what she says, you have to be the bigger person."_

_"I'm smaller," Edmund argued. "You're the bigger one." He clapped his hands together as if to detach the lingering feeling of her strong little arm, "And anyway I don't like her. She's prissy. And bossier than Susan."_

_"You don't have to like her," Peter parroted his father. "You just have to get along with her."_

_"How can I get along with someone I don't like?" Edmund asked in frustration, digging his fingers under the root to pull at the dirt. "I can't do it! I won't! I'll get into a fight with her, I know I will! And then Daddy will paddle me."_

_"He won't paddle you."_

_"He'll put me in my room until supper."_

_"But he won't paddle you."_

_"I hate sitting in my room by myself!"_

_"You won't be sitting by yourself because you aren't going to get into a fight with her," Peter said firmly, taking a seat next to his brother on the root. "Just keep doing what you're doing and we'll be home before you know it."_

_His brother's face darkened. "I'm not stupid."_

_"I didn't say you were," Peter said, surprised._

_"She did. She said I was _stupid_." It is a difficult task for a four-year-old to create a look worthy of a full-grown person, but Edmund was then pegging _vengeful _rather well._

_"Well, if you had talked when she spoke to you, she wouldn't have said that." Peter said, not wanting mischief to come out of this. "It was a little rude."_

_"No. But she would have said something else," said Edmund smartly._

**OoOoOoOoO**

"She shouldn't have said that," Lucy says. "She realizes that she shouldn't have said that, right?"

Edmund grunts, still dripping on the hardwood. He has a towel over his head and a thick blue comforter wrapped around his shoulders that he stole from Peter's bedding. He sits on the chair next to Peter's pillow while Lucy sits beside Peter's propped-up leg. She's working on the daily crossword, halfheartedly working on eight-down, wondering what a three letter word for _idiot _could be. It isn't as distracting as Lucy would like it to be, in light of recent events.

"Charlotte Dawson," Peter moans. "If ever I was allowed to hate a person..."

"Wasn't she living in France or something?" Lucy demands. "I could have sworn that after last time, she just gave up and went looking for other boys to hunt."

Peter snorts. "Hunt. Perfect. That's exactly the kind of person she is." He rolls his head on the pillow and throws out a hand, smacking his little brother on the fluffy padding of his shoulder. "Ed. Are you dry yet?"

"Probably," Edmund says. Like Lucy, he's only half-paying attention. His furious gaze is boring into the floorboards.

"Ed," Peter says.

Then, when Edmund doesn't look up, Lucy bellows, "_Your Honor!"_

_"_Eh?" Edmund demands sharply, looking around.

Peter smiles. "I'm not going to read in the papers tomorrow about some young lady waking up stranded in the Outback, am I?"

"Probably not. It would take her weeks to find a journalist if she started in the center of it."

_That _makes Peter smile. It hurts his face to do it- his cheek is heavily bruised and his missing tooth stings in his mouth. His whole body feels like it rolled off of a mountainside. Somehow Edmund managed to escape with only a thin cut over his left eye. It's a little swollen, but Lucy had cleaned it thoroughly and it gives Edmund a rather intimidating edge.

That, in addition to the anger which is mostly blacking-out Edmund's mind, makes Peter wonder how Charlotte Dawson managed to openly threaten him without balking.

"Because," Edmund explains. "She's not really herself. I mean she's not even her. She's not Charlotte- it's something wearing her shape."

Which makes Lucy's day that much more complicated.

**OoOoOoOoO**

It's a little known fact that Lucy's role in the Friends of Narnia is not unlike an élite messenger.

And, thanks to certain magical talents of their cousin, Eustace Clarence Scrubb, the motorized bicycle called affectionately "Creature" works better than ever as a messenger chariot. In addition to the semi-illegal throttle and questionable fuel, it now has Scrubb Magic rumbling through its parts.

So, Creature is sort of like a creature, in that it actively prefers Lucy to any other driver. Even more than Edmund, Creature's creator. Though that might have been because Edmund is the type of creator who is never done tinkering with the design, and Creature suffers from low self-esteem. It is trying to love itself for who it already is. It doesn't want to change just to please others. Lucy loves it for who it is, and for this reason it loves Lucy fiercely. _She_ never suggested in pointed tones how titanium plating would be better for its structural integrity than welded scrap metal!

Lucy thumbs the handlebars now and the engines purr in response. Creature's lights blink open, lasering in on the street ahead of it. It revs, but Lucy isn't ready to go just yet.

"Remember," she calls, strapping her helmet under her chin and tugging the goggles over her eyes. "Don't let Peter talk you into letting him up. He'll say anything if Ed _and _I are out from under his nose. Also, if he asks for food, remind him that he has to stick with the celery soup on the table. It's fine to eat hot or cold. He's still a little contused and he can't handle much more than that. If he insists on being himself, ring me and I'll head home."

Creature snorts derisively. It already knows the answer to eight-down on Lucy's crossword.

"But leave that as a last resort," Lucy adds in agreement. "Do you need anything?"

Wisp, the three-legged Cat, stares politely at her from the front steps of the Pevensie home and whips his tail behind him.

Lucy takes this as a "no."

"Edmund will be home before dark," she assures the Cat. "He'll help with Peter. Just hold on until then."

"Meow," Wisp says ironically.

"Thanks," Lucy replies. "You, too." She reaches down and pats Creature's crooked frame. "Let's go, Creature."

Creature, ecstatic for the chance to run, squeals worn tires against the Finchley streets, taps into its magic, and zips across the city in a time it takes for a hummingbird to flap.

As if it could do _that _with titanium!

**OoOoOoOoO**

While Lucy investigates Scotland, Edmund stalks along the Thames in search of the beached steamer, keeping his eyes peeled for clues.

The rain from yesterday has swollen the river. It laps at the banks of the road. Edmund weaves between racing cars and the steady current, reaching down every now and then to pick up something that doesn't satisfy his inner Sherlock Holmes as much as he would like. Shells, mostly. A shilling. Something that he thought was a scrap of fabric from her dress, but was really some weird leathery thing that he quickly drops in disgust.

Actually, he picks that up again and frowns. He sniffs it. Gags. Stuffs it into his pocket with a longsuffering glower.

"A blasted _Kelpie_," he says.

Not only is he right, he finds out that he's right almost immediately when it lurches out of the water, grabs hold of him, and drags him under the rushing current.

**OoOoOoOoO**

Fishing in the Thames isn't the best idea, mostly because it's so completely polluted. But also because there are boats everywhere and American tourists taking pictures of every natural native that they can lay eyes on, which includes cute little old men fishing in the middle of the river.

There are actually two cute little old men fishing in the river today. Each has his own boat. They float at opposite banks, serenely holding a little fishing line over the edge. Locals give them odd looks, but mostly ignore them, and this suits the two cute little old men just fine.

To be realistic, only one of them is really an old man.

Professor Digory Kirke is in the boat on the Eastern bank. He's brushed down his hair and stuffed it under an adorable old-man cap, smoking incessantly on his pipe. Eustace is in the other boat. The fake beard he's wearing itches horribly. He wishes he was the sort of magician that could catch the cursed thing on fire. Sadly, he's only the type of magician who can control mechanized things. Creature is a little wary of him for this reason, but it usually doesn't matter, because it's so ardently in love with Lucy Pevensie that it keeps itself in shape and he rarely has to give it check-ups.

His boat pitches a little in the wrong direction, and he looks sharply East, catching Kirke's eye. Kirke stands in his boat and drops his fishing pole and Eustace takes this as "the signal."

Between their two little boats, a large, metal net stretches across the width of the Thames. It would have taken a normal person weeks to make. Eustace is not a normal person.

"_Adventalam katep," _he mutters in Old Narnian.

The net comes alive, rolling in on itself. The pitching happens again, and Eustace wills the net to hurry. Kirke is already rowing towards him, and the net is becoming more and more nettled under the water, hopefully with the Kelpie nettled up inside of it.

Just when Eustace thinks the thing will throw him out of his little boat, the struggles in the net cease. Eustace lets out a heavy breath that whiffles through his false moustache.

Together, he and Kirke row for land on the Western bank, pulling their boats forwards until the form in the net is beached.

"_Adventalam siso," _Eustace commands. The net unrolls.

Edmund Pevensie falls out of it, hits the ground and arcs, violently spewing Thames water. His dark hair glued over a ghostly face, eyes red. He desperately sucks in the cold England air.

"Edmund!" Eustace exclaims. He rushes forwards and helps his cousin to sit up.

Edmund moans. "Ugh, I can taste petrol refineries."

"I don't think there _are _any petrol refineries around here," Eustace says.

"Trust me. They're here somewhere." Edmund leans forward and vomits heartily.

"What happened to the Kelpie?" Kirke asks.

"I dunno," Edmund gasps. "I found part of its skin and then it just pulled me under. I think it was trying to drown me."

"Apparently," Eustace winces, patting his cousin's back as he continues to expel England from his lungs. "All right. Let's get you home. Peter's going to be out of his mind with worry."

"That _thing _is still running around out there!" Edmund protested angrily, wiping his mouth on his soaking sleeve.

"Home," Kirke says firmly. He and Eustace help Edmund stand.

They leave the boats and the net and make for the Bentley parked discreetly behind a row of bushes by the riverbank. Edmund looks at it.

"What?" Eustace wonders.

"Nothing," Edmund says. "Just never thought I could be more happy to see that beauty."

Eustace laughs. "It's even better on the inside."

They settle him carefully in the back seat, Kirke takes the wheel, and Eustace sits shotgun.

"_Adventalam katep," _Eustace says casually.

A metal net drops from the ceiling, where it had been spelled invisible. It lands on Edmund and he gives a startled yelp.

"Eustace!" he demands, weakly struggling as the metal wraps its way around him. "What in Aslan's name are you _doing?"_

Eustace shakes his head and Kirke chuckles a little darkly, throwing the car into drive.

"Really," Eustace scolds. "You'd think a magical creature would remember how sensitive we magicians are to enchantments."

"Let me go, Eustace, or I _swear_, when I get out of this thing, I'm going to rip off your eyebrows and-"

Eustace turns around fully in his seat to stare Edmund in the eyes. After almost a year of magical study, Eustace had grown quite a bit in the way of magicianhood. Now, what he might have once seen as his snarky cousin, he sees faintly under, as if he can see through a semi-transparent casing. Edmund Pevensie is a shell, and the thing wearing his form is trying desperately to hide it.

"Be a good Kelpie," Eustace advises. "You picked the wrong Narnian to replace."

**OoOoOoOoO**

Peter is enjoying the unusual treat of being pampered and coddled by his younger sister.

In the past three hours, while Lucy and Edmund were off doing their parts, Susan brought him five books, two new bowls of celery soup, a cup of chamomile, Wisp, and her own person. She sits in the chair beside his bed (which was still a little damp from when Edmund had been drying off in it yesterday) and frowns over the remainder of the daily crossword. A pencil hangs from her lip as she chews it. The clock in the hallway ticks steadily. Peter is feeling strangely comfortable with the idea of bed rest. From time to time, he peeks at her over his first book, _The War of the Worlds_, and tries to assure himself that she's actually there.

Now, around Lucy and Edmund, he pretends that Susan will come around. That Collins' spell is going to wear off eventually, what with the man's magic being sucked out of him and all. That's a High King's job, right? Setting an example in the face of adversity? But honestly, he's starting to feel that space between them rather strongly.

She's not really _different_ so much as _faded_. Like a bad antenna on a radio. Fuzzy, words distorted, faint sounds without much meaning.

They don't really connect anymore; he can't make her smile like he used to.

"Peter?"

"Mm?"

"I think someone's home." She nods to the light glancing through the windows, rolling along the walls. Peter can hear the soft power of the Bentley's engine.

"Edmund," he says.

He's mostly wrong.

**OoOoOoOoO**

The Kelpie wearing Edmund's form is tied to Susan's abandoned chair with the mechanical net, looking around at their faces with a carefully guarded expression. In fact, the look is so _Edmund _that Peter is having second-thoughts. It had been awkward enough trying to explain (without really explaining) what was going on to Susan, and they'd parted on rather cool terms. She's in her room now, back to her vanity table and the radio blasting the Andrew Sisters. Peter sighs and presses a knuckle into the headache building behind his eyes.

"So," he says. "You're sure?"

Eustace has peeled off his disguise by now, and the skin above his lip and around his cheeks are red. He rubs at them absently and nods. "It sounds barmy, but the Professor and I can see what it looks like under this- This Edmund outside."

"It's quite startling," the Professor adds. His hair is back to it's usual chaos. He and Eustace flank the chair like sentries. Peter can smell magic filling the air.

"Where's Lucy?" the Kelpie wonders. "Is she still in Scotland?"

"Hush up, you," Eustace says.

It scowls, and defects to Peter. "Check on her if she's not back in an hour, all right? Creature can be flighty."

"How do you know about Lucy?" Peter asks in his most Kingly voice. He tries to look a little more intimidating, but it's hard when he's smothered in quilts and propped in a wonderland of pillows.

The Kelpie rolls its eyes. "Mostly because we _sent her there_." The _you ass _part is heavily implied.

"You didn't send anyone anywhere," Eustace says angrily.

But this isn't quite true.

"What have you done with Edmund?" Peter tries. He doesn't need to insert the threatening growl, because it rolls out of him naturally.

"Peter," it says. "I'm sitting right in front of you. I think Eustace's magic is on the fritz. Something's wrong."

This sounds very logical and Edmund-like. Peter casts around his mind for ideas.

"Wisp," he says. He looks to Eustace. "Bring Wisp here."

Eustace frowns, looks at the Professor, "Do you mind? Because Wisp still hate me for some reason."

The Professor gives a little bow and exits in search of the three-legged Cat.

Eustace and Peter stare at the Kelpie. The Kelpie looks between the two of them.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Edmund's features relax from worried and guarded to sly and coy. It leans back into the magicked net and smiles at the two of them, lips curling over its sharp white teeth. Peter's stomach lurches and a terrible foreboding comes over him. He hadn't realized how much he wished it was telling the truth, until now.

"My, my, _my_," it purrs. "Relying on animals. What's the matter? Can't brotherly love solve this one?"

"Where's Edmund?" Peter demands.

"_Where's Edmund?"_ it mimics in a slow, slightly unintelligent voice. "God, can't you say anything else?"

_**Sure**_**, **come's Other Peter's voice, echoing around in Peter's head like a ticking bomb. _**Want me to count down from ten? At one, you lose an eye. **_

But Peter doesn't say anything, biting down hard on his tongue until he tastes copper. He can tell Eustace is sensing the Gift magic in action under Peter's skin, and that his young cousin is wondering if he should intercede before Peter does or says something which he cannot control. But he doesn't have to say anything, because Kirke enters the room just then with a riled Wisp. His back is arched and he hisses so angrily at the creature wearing Edmund's form, that Peter has no doubt that the Cat is chewing out the Kelpie enough for them all.

"You know," the Kelpie remarks despondently. "I wonder why Edmund keeps that thing around- I feel like I'm breaking out in hives just looking at it."

The three Friends of Narnia look to one another, eyebrows raised all around.

"That answers that," Kirke says.

* * *

**A/N: ****This is so weird, but I just realized that I wrote the first scene three years ago. It's completely unedited. The rest is completely new. Just goes to show, huh?**

**What's happened to Edmund? What's the deal between Charlotte and Peter? What on earth is Lucy doing in Scotland? Stick around to find out****! I know this chapter has taken on a slightly off-kilter, almost crackish feel, which I attribute to the fact that I'm currently halfway through Neil Gaiman's **_**Good Omens**_**, a similarly flavored work.**

**Questions? Comments? Pressing concerns? Leave them via PM or review! ****(Also, please let me know if you spot any spelling/grammar mistakes. My LibreOffice seems to have lost the ability to spell check.)**

**As Always,**

**-Tonzura123**


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